BITING restrictions are being put in place around the Kendal and Sedbergh area this week after the Government issued DEFRA with new powers to limit the movement of people, machinery and animals.

The extension of the special biosecurity zone, and the ministry's search for a possible base of operations around Kendal, has left many farmers wondering whether DEFRA is anticipating an outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the area south of the old Penrith Spur boundary at Tebay.

On Wednesday morning most farmers within the new boundary received a letter from DEFRA telling them that all movement licences were revoked and that no new ones, other than for transport direct to slaughter, would be issued.

One farmer in the Kendal area who received the letter, but who did not wish to be named, said: "One just wonders why they have gone and stuck us with all this round here now - do they know something that we don't? It's really got us on the edge."

But DEFRA was keen to reassure that it was not abandoning farmers to the south of the old Spur boundary to the same fate as their counterparts in north.

For the full story see this week's Gazette.